1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to golf tee holders and specifically .a golf tee holder having an improved housing that provides easy manual access for loading or dispensing a single tee and a substantial viewing area to visually inspect the condition of all the tees in the holder, while securely retaining all the tees regardless of movement or position of the device.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Golf tee holders have been shown in the prior art. Typically, the tees are individually loaded into a holder having individual holes, one for each tee. Such a device is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 4,850,483 which issued to Stack on Jul. 25, 1989 disclosing a plurality of tees individually mounted in a peripheral array, each extending out from the device. In this arrangement the tees can be easily dislodged and the array takes up extra space. Another type of golf tee dispenser is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 4,573,610 issued to Hurner, Mar. 4, 1986 in which the tees are serially loaded into a long cylindrical tube and then individually dispensed. Loading the tees requires disassembling the device and individually inserting the tees in a predetermined order. U.S. Design Patent 165,253 issued to Ward, Nov. 20, 1951, shows a golf tee holder that includes individual slots for each tee body along with grooved portions for resting the tee head. This device utilizes excessive space for the few tees that it holds. A golf accessory is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 4,784,305 issued to Schoenberg, Nov. 15, 1988, that includes golf ball holders and apertures along an elongated face of the device for holding tees. A very limited amount of tees can be held. Finally, a golf tee holder is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 1,739,780, issued to Buhke, Dec. 17, 1929, which provides a magazine-like holder in which the tees may be inserted parallel at one end and removed at the opposite end. Although this device holds a plurality of tees, it suffers from the drawbacks that the tees are not readily accessible for manually grasping for removal and are not readily visible for inspection by the user since the magazine covers both the head and end tip of the tee.
The present invention overcomes the problems of the prior art by providing a tee holder that can hold several tees mounted in a space efficient non-complex receptacle that allows for easy access for extracting a tee while ensuring that the tees are firmly held in place regardless of the position of the tee holder relative to the ground or when subjected to bumping or sharp movement. Also the tees are disposed in such a way as to be readily observable to the user for inspection.